Archive for August, 2009


Aug 31 2009

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Garden Structures


Nothing reminds us that spring is coming more than digging out the potting soil, the rusted tools, and clay pots. For me it involves cleaning the refuse out of my vegetable garden from the previous year, opening up the deer fencing, and bringing on the roto-tiller. Like many things in life, the process is often more important than the final product. In the end, after planting watering and tending, dozens of vegetable plants and seeds over the course of the summer, if the bugs, the weeds, and the weather let us have a few to ourselves we are truly happy.

A few years back I had a most unusual request come across my table. A husband and wife who are friends of mine had 2 different needs. She wanted a potting shed. He wanted a wood shed. Neither of them wanted to clutter their bucolic setting with too many little outbuildings. Our solution was to combine the two functions.

Their home and farm is located in a beautiful hamlet with a carpenter gothic church and many homes dating from the 1800s or before. The edifice they ask me to design was to define the line between her space-the flower garden and his space-the barn. The barn area was often quite busy and chaotic with his potato crop, and farm equipment. Her garden was equally in flux with new designs and beautiful assortments of flowers and fauna. With my friends help, I designed a carpenter gothic, potting and wood shed. From the barn you see the wood shed; from the house you see the garden and a potting shed. He can walk through the middle of the potting shed to reach the wood on a cold winters evening. She can easily reach her tools in the potting shed from the garden. I particularly love the fact that a small building I designed has joined this hamlet as a working participant of farm and home life.

I think many of us have forgotten how powerful a modest structure can be in the landscape. Eighteenth and nineteenth century southern plantations almost always kept their pigeons or doves in pigeonniers or dovecotes. These small structures were utilitarian, but punctuated and emphasized the larger structures they were near. We design tool sheds, potting sheds, and generator enclosures (and all other buildings) to fit in with their environment and to complement the existing architecture. Garden structures create the feeling of a compound even though as buildings they themselves are quite modest. Because their presence in the landscape can enhance all else, their design deserves just as much attention as their larger cousins.

James Crisp is a writer for Yodle, a business directory and online advertising company. Find a contractor or more Garden articles at Yodle Consumer Guide. Garden Structures

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/gardening-articles/garden-structures-1179722.html

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Aug 30 2009

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Woods for Your Wood Garden Furniture


If you are preparing to buy some garden furniture there is a lot of narrowing down that you need to do. For example, do you want metal, stone, plastic or wood garden furniture? You have probably discovered that wood furniture is not as popular as it used to be. For some time now outdoor garden furniture alternatives are cheaper than traditional wood.  Even though it is more expensive, hand-crafted wood furniture is the best you can buy, and it will probably last longer than metal or plastic. Is your answer now wood? You have probably made an excellent choice.

Now that you decided on wood your search has just begun. Telling a craftsman that you want wood furniture is similar to walking into a computer store and telling them you want a computer. There are too many choices of wood to be uncertain about what kind you want. In order to help you, the following items will describe these different woods for your wood garden furniture.

Alder. This wood is a hard wood valued for its durability and strength. It is very beautiful in its natural state, which is a honey color; it also can easily be stained to generate a different look for wood garden furniture.

Brazilian Cherry. Brazilian cherry wood is a popular wood due because of its density and natural weather resistance. This wood is not only used in garden furniture but is used in decking, equipment for the playground and railroad ties. Brazilian cherry furniture is an exellent choice for durability; it should last up to 25 years or more.

Cedar. Cedar is probably one of the best choices for wood garden furniture. One good thing about cedar is its natural resistant to insect damage and it also resists weather and decay damage that seems to attack other types of wood.

Cypress. This is a popular wood for garden furniture as it resists decay and cracking. It has an exclusive yellowish-red color that people find attractive. Cypress wood will retain paint quite well. Even though it is appealing in its natural state, if you want to paint or stain it, it would look just as beautiful.

Mahogany. Mahogany is another type of wood that is beautiful for use in the garden. It will resist splintering and shrinking. Newly built mahogany furniture has a deep, rich red color. After spending time in the elements, this wood will get a bit of a silver hue to it.

Teak. Teak is one of the hardest, strongest and most durable of all woods. It is highly resistant to rotting and is almost impenetrable to the effects of sun, rain, frost, or snow. If left untreated it will have a gracefull silver gray color, if treated with oil it will maintain its golden yellow color.

Now you have a few ideas on the different woods for your wood garden furniture and you can select whichever suits your needs best. Any wood garden furniture can be used on your deck, patio, under your trees, for dining, or just relaxing in your flower garden. The natural beauty of wood garden furniture will enhance the natural spaces in your garden.

Barbara E. Volkov has been checking into <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="”“>http://www.GardenersGardenSupplies.com/wooden-garden-furniture.html””> wood garden furniture

for the garden and deck. I found some interesting things you might like to know. Come visit our website <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="”“>http://www.GardenersGardenSupplies.com””> Gardeners Garden Supplies for a few gardening ideas.

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/gardening-articles/woods-for-your-wood-garden-furniture-1176232.html

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Aug 29 2009

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How to Make Your Own Fertilizer

Filed under Renewable Energy Questions


Raising your own vegetable garden helps stretch your grocery budget. Not only is it economical, but homegrown produce is quite nutritious, especially if you fertilize the soil before you plant. It’s pretty easy to visit your local lawn and garden store and pick up a few bags of commercial fertilizer. But to enrich your garden soil without harmful chemicals and save money at the same time, it’s better to make and use your own fertilizer.

Homemade Fertilizer Made With Weeds

Although we see them as nuisances in our yards and gardens, weeds can be quite beneficial. They can make an easy-to-use homemade fertilizer for your vegetable garden. The greater the variety of weeds you use, the more nutrients your fertilizer will contain. Most any kind of weeds can be used such as dandelions, nettles and wild garlic.

To make this homemade fertilizer, simply gather together a bunch of different types of weeds. Chop them up roughly with a pair of yard clippers and place them in a five-gallon bucket. You’ll need about a pound of weeds per batch. Add eight cups of tap water to the chopped weeds and cover the bucket. Set it in a warm, sunny spot outside that is away from your house. As the weeds ferment, they will become rather smelly.

Allow the homemade weed fertilizer to ferment in the sun for two to four weeks, stirring the mixture weekly. Don’t get the solution on your skin or clothing, because it will stain.

Finally, to use this fertilizer on your garden, mix together 1 part of the weed solution and 10 parts water. Pour it onto the roots of your vegetable plants and then water the soil with plain tap water to help send the homemade fertilizer down to the roots.

When you need to make more weed solution, simply replace the old weeds with a fresh batch. Add more water and allow the solution to ferment as you did previously.

Homemade Organic Fertilizer

Another way you can enrich your garden soil and save money is to make a homemade organic fertilizer. You’ll need to visit your local feed and grain store, as well as a garden supply store to buy the necessary supplies, including:

1. Seed Meal

2. Finely- Ground Agricultural Lime

3. Gypsum

4. Dolomitic lime

5. Bone meal or rock phosphate

6. Kelp meal

If you can’t find bone meal or kelp meal at the local store, you can buy small bags of both through various Web sites.

To make this organic fertilizer, mix together 4 parts seed meal, 1/4 part agricultural lime, 1/4 part gypsum, 1/2 part dolomitic lime, 1 part bone meal or rock phosphate and 1/2 part kelp meal in a five-gallon bucket.

To use this fertilizer on your garden, spread it over the soil in the spring before you plant. Then, apply small amounts to your growing vegetable plants every three to four weeks.

Kassidy Emmerson is a writer for Yodle, a business directory and online advertising company. Find a gardener or more garden articles at Yodle Consumer Guide. How to Make Your Own Fertilizer

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/gardening-articles/how-to-make-your-own-fertilizer-1172652.html

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Aug 29 2009

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Garden Benches: How Garden Benches Can Full Your Garden

Filed under Renewable Energy Questions


Garden Benches: What Your Next Act Is

Now you own a pretty flower garden that you have been sacrificing your time and effort. You ask yourself what more can you add to establish the garden finished. Possibly it is time to arrange some garden benches around where you, your family, and friends can sit down and take account the marvels of your attainment. There is no ground why you have to stand from afar while admiring the scenes when you can have garden benches for you to sit back and make relaxed on. Opting the garden benches you need to be arranged in your garden can summate up to the excitement in settling your last task.

Picking Out Garden Benches

Garden benches are obtainable in any size, design, and way and can be made from any material. They can be built from junk wood or logs, concrete blocks, wrought iron, rock, granite, marble, and even railroad tires. You can either purchase them straight off from varying stores or you can also have them affected according to your vogue. In fact there are some who just take a piece of log and stimulate it as a garden bench without much construction techniques. It is just a affair of being extraordinary and surefooted. But if you wish your garden benches to be intricately crafted, then you can purchase them from stores or have them created for a more individualized impact.

A Place of Solitude

Repose and peace. These are what one should sense when in the secrecy of a flower garden. And these feelings will only be exhaustive when you have a space to sit down like the garden benches for a more reposeful humour. Loving the beauty of a flower garden can be the most pacific feel peculiarly when you live in a city where individuals are subsisting in a fast paced and annoying life. You should spend some time to make relaxed and be at serenity. Owning a position alike a flower garden can take off all the emphasize in an routine life. And your garden benches is the locate where you can relax, take away all the anxieties, and definitely restore your sensibilities.

finished your flower garden and obtain your garden benches today at Home Seasonal Concepts. It is the set where you can select distinguishable figures and ways of garden benches affected from several varieties of materials. Home Seasonal Concepts facilitates in stimulating the outdoors an extension of your home and you will be taken care of by their cost-effective personnel who will assist and guide you all the way.
Tranquility and peace of mind. These are what one should flavour when in the secrecy of a flower garden. And these feelings will only be exhaustive when you have a site to sit down like the garden benches for a more restful climate. Relishing the beauty of a flower garden can be the most passive experience peculiarly when you live in a city where masses are living in a fast paced and vexing life. You should pass some time to loosen and be at peace of mind. Owning a place like a flower garden can take off all the stress in an routine life. And your garden benches is the locate where you can unroll, take away all the anxiousnesses, and definitely rejuvenate your aesthesia.

accomplished your flower garden and fetch your garden benches now at Home Seasonal Concepts. It is the identify where you can opt varying patterns and trends of garden benches made from different forms of stuffs. Home Seasonal Concepts services in devising the open airs an annexe of your home and you will be taken care of by their effective personnel who will facilitate and steer you all the way.

Buy garden benches now it increases the style of the garden available at http://www.seasonalconceptsonline.comArticle Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/gardening-articles/garden-benches-how-garden-benches-can-full-your-garden-1173644.html

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Aug 28 2009

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How to Grow Your Own Medjool Dates

Filed under Renewable Energy Questions


You are living your life wondering your own business, then suddenly when you least expected you are introduced to a medjool date. You say “what the hell is this ? It looks like a giant raisin.” You taste it and you are addicted. You ask your friend for more and eat the entire contents of her box. She looks at you in amazement a little confused, may be a little upset. “Don’t you have anymore you ?” you ask. She shakes her head as she quickly glances at the pantry door. You know she has more medjool dates in the pantry, but she is not sharing. You thank her and leave for a nearby supermarket. You enter and go for the fruit section and are disappointed to see that they don’t carry any medjool dates. You take out your cell and call your friend and ask where she got that delightful medjool date snack. She informs you that she got them at a natural foods store. Soon you are on your way to the local natural foods store. You go in and find your way to the dates. You are surprised that there are actually two types of dates, medjool dates and deglet noor dates. You grab a box of medjool dates and are surprised by the hefty $10 price tag for a small box. You grab the deglet noor and pleasantly surprised by the $3.50 price tag. You take one of each, you go home and open your box of deglet noor. Your mouth watering take a bite and are deeply disappointed it is as if all the flavor was sucked out. It is not horrible, it is just not nearly as tasty as the medjool date. You take a medjool date and wow! There is the great taste.

The next day you get the craving for your medjool dates and you finish yet another box. By the end of the week you discover you have spent $50 on medjool dates and begin to wonder how you can grow your own dates. “Well I have the seeds, why not plant the seeds and wait for the date palm trees to come out and bear some fruit.?” You plant the seeds, you wait a while by the end of the moth you have a dozen date palms coming out of your pots. You plant them and wait. Finally three years later it looks like you may be getting some dates any day now. Finally you retire and can devote your full time to tending your date palms and still no dates. You move to the desert where you are pleasantly surprised by all the medjool date orchards nearby, where you can now go shop for dates directly with the farmers and can purchase these dates for only $3.50 a pound. You then ask why did your date palms would not produce. You discover you did it all wrong. All those years wasted.

When you start a date palm from seed you may get a female or a male. You just don’t know until about a decade later. Secondly when you grown dates from seed you may or may not get medjool dates. Growing dates from seed is actually very exciting, because you can create your own variety of dates. You just don’t know what you are going to get from seed. Dates have to come from date palm shoots to get the same date. Medjool dates come from medjool date palm shoots and deglet noor from deglet noor date palm shoots. Last you have to have the right conditions to grow dates. You can only grow dates in areas that are hot and dry. Dates will not grow along the coast like most other palm fruit. Lastly the date palm has to get a lot of water year round. Even if all these conditions are present there are a lot of manual chores you have to do to successfully grown big jumbo medjool dates.

Buy Delicious Medjool Dates at Medjool DatesArticle Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/gardening-articles/how-to-grow-your-own-medjool-dates-1172074.html

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